Right Thinking from the Left Coast

Home of the Whopper

Burger King may be the home of the Whopper, but Canada may be the new home of Burger King.

The restaurant operator said on Sunday that it was in talks to buy Tim Hortons, the Canadian doughnut-and-coffee chain, in a potential deal that would create one of the world’s biggest fast-food businesses.

If completed, the deal would mean Burger King’s corporate headquarters would move to Canada, raising the specter of yet another American company switching its national citizenship to lower its tax bill.

As you can image, the Left Wing is going apeshit, accusing Burger King of being unpatriotic and putting shareholders in front of communities, people, employees, the environment, the cosmos, God, king and country.

But Burger King is hardly the only company contemplating this kind of tax inversion. Numerous companies have over $2 trillion overseas that they won’t repatriate because our government, rather uniquely, double taxes overseas earnings. We also have an unholy mess of a corporate tax system which has a nominally high rate but many loopholes. The system is so bad that Canada — with all its maple syrup, hockey and French — is now considered a tax haven.

(Also note that this move would just change Burger King’s tax burden. It won’t change anything else like how many people they employ or what they pay them. So the supposed “betrayal” is simply a lowering of their tax burden. To BK’s critics, a company’s primary patriotic duty is apparently to pay as much in taxes as possible.)

But it’s much more fun to gnash your teeth about the evil machinations of a big corporation that to, you know, work the problem that Republicans have been talking about for years.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. And no, I am not talking about Burger King: I am talking about this once great nation and where it has been heading because of the collectivist scammers. Five generations ago the big government types build the Hoover Dam. One or tow generations after that, they gave us the Interstate system. The one after that put a man on the moon. And finally, it all culminates in the generation that suffers from the most hubris and lack of ability giving us the Obamacare website.

And Hal, I think in your commentary about the apeshit left, you meant to say “god-king”, as in Obama, and not “God, king”, right? :)

Also note that this move would just change Burger King’s tax burden. It won’t change anything else like how many people they employ or what they pay them. So the supposed “betrayal” is simply a lowering of their tax burden. To BK’s critics, a company’s primary patriotic duty is apparently to pay as much in taxes as possible.

Not to pay as many taxes as possible. It’s more about companies being able to talk advantage of the infrastructure that a nationstate provides (roads, education, rule of law etc etc) but not actually pay for their upkeep.

IMHO The problem isn’t too much or little taxation – it’s that the whole way we think of public sector economics is based on economics from the industrial age. Corporate taxation simply doesn’t work in a global economy – the tax code is always going to be reactive to what corporates are doing, that’s why its so unweidly.

My wife and I were in Toronto last week and fell in love with Tim Horton’s, or Timmy’s as we took to calling it. Clean establishments with very consistent and not-too-bad food and coffee. Plus there was almost literally one on every block. Then we heard about the Burger King takeover and my wife says, “Well shit, Burger King will just fu** it up.” Burger King is a joke. I hope they don’t ruin Timmy’s but I suspect they will.

That would take some MONUMENTAL mismanagement. It’s not much of an exaggeration that one is on every block. Did you also notice its busy at ALL TIMES no matter the time of day? It’s ingrained in our culture.

My wife and I were in Toronto last week and fell in love with Tim Horton’s, or Timmy’s as we took to calling it. Clean establishments with very consistent and not-too-bad food and coffee. Plus there was almost literally one on every block. Then we heard about the Burger King takeover and my wife says, “Well shit, Burger King will just fu** it up.” Burger King is a joke. I hope they don’t ruin Timmy’s but I suspect they will.

Actually, one of the reasons for the relocation to Canada is that Tim Horton’s has a *larger* market cap than Burger King. Probably for the reasons you cite.